A brief post on the Church

In my case, the Church is the Catholic Church, which I have been estranged from since my teenage years. There are a great many good Catholics that I know, doing great acts of charity and service, such as paying off medical debt. And when I read pieces like this one, I think: yes, Catholicism can be a force for good.

But then there are the many terrible actions by the church and those within it that remind me of why my estrangement still exists. Like how Catholics who promised residential school survivors $25M instead spent $300M on a new church. or the political actions of Bishops in the United States. Or finally, laicized cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick is being charged with a fraction of the things he got away with for a very long time. Things everyone knew about. And just so you know, McCarrick is not the end of it. If you can bare it, here’s more about it.

Finally here’s an editorial in a Catholic Church publication talking about just how messed up the church is.

That’s all I have to say for now.

P.S. April 4, 2025: The New York Times has McCarrick’s obituary here. The Times seems to struggle, in their obit, to deal with the two sides of McCarrick, the good and the bad. But the bad parts prevent me from appreciating any of the good parts. No RIP for him.

(Image: Damon Winter/The New York Times)

What I found worthwhile reading regarding indigenous people in Canada, summer 2021

I am always trying to find ways to better understand the indigenous people of Canada and as a result I try and keep the better things I come across that help me with that understanding. I tend to be haphazard in how I research things: that shows in the almost randomness in what I have collected below. I think these links are worth reading, though.

On Residential schools: Recently there has been a strong focus on Canada’s Residential school system. Some people wrote about how people didn’t know this was happening back then. However this piece gives some important historical context as to what people knew at the time. As well, this piece gives more context as to how TB affected Aboriginal people.

Alot of what has been driving the focus has been the use of technology to find unmarked graves. Here are two good pieces on that ground radar technology. This piece gives a good introduction to it and this piece provides much more detail on how it works. For example, I naively expected the images to be more like an X ray or an ultrasound. It’s not quite that straightforward. Instead the images look like this:

(Image via CBC site)

As the use of the technology spread to other schools, some believed we would find graves at every residential school. However despite a lot of effort, there is no evidence found of unmarked graves related to Shubenacadie Residential School. I suspect this examination of schools will go on for a long time, and we will find more graves, but it will take time and not always come up with clear results.

As for why this is suddenly going forward, this story gives some context on how the search for the missing graves is being funded. Better late than never from the Federal government, but the lateness is still bad.

Finally, this is shameful: How the Catholic Church raised nearly $300M for buildings since promising residential school survivors $25M in 2005 . More on that story here.

History: My knowledge of indigenous history is weak. However, I found this helpful: More history: on the Iroquois as well as this: Military history of the Mi’kmaq people.

I need to go to Indigo bookstore and read more books and get a better sense of indigenous and Canadian history. If you feel the same, here’s a good list of what they have. Libraries are also good to go to and check out these books.

Other items:

Here’s a piece in the National Post giving an update on the work done so far on the 94 calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Needless to say, much work remains.
Some interesting work done here to provide a new tool to help with regards to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) in Canada. Somewhat relatedly, Canadian poet George Elliott Clarke would not read poetry by convicted killer at MMIWG event. This refusal by Clarke was a strong reminder to me that you can’t claim redemption easily, nor should you.
Here’s an update on providing clean drinking water in First Nations communities.
Here’s an essay on how Mary Simon may be the Governor-General that makes a difference for Canada. It would be good if she could.

Finally, if you want to learn more about Indigenous people in Canada, I’ve seen some indigenous people say that link was worthwhile.

(Top image of Shubenacadie Residential School via Wikipedia. Bottom image is of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada taken by Sgt Johanie Maheu, Rideau Hall © OSGG-BSGG, 2021)

Is math political? Does it need to be? A few thoughts

You would think so, if you read this: Sneering at Ontario’s anti-racist math curriculum reveals a straight line to what people value in The Star

What has the columnist angry was the removal of several passages of progressive political text that went with the update to the recent changes of the math curriculum. I can see why that removal would anger some people with progressive political values.

I can also imagine how many conservatives would have been angry if there was text like this removed from a new curriculum: “recognize the ways in which mathematics can be used as a tool to uncover, explore, analyse, and promote actions to address greater productivity and growth within our economy and to lead Canada to a strong future of wealth and opportunity”, or if the government removed anything to do with teachers creating “pro-capitalist and pro-business teaching and learning opportunities.” Any group that tries to explicitly frame a curriculum and then have that framing removed will be upset.

Mathematics itself is not political, but it is always taught within a political and historical context. For example, I have math texts that make it seem that the only worthwhile math came from European men, while I have others that show mathematics has roots all over the world. I have math textbooks that mention 0 women, while other texts show the role women have played in mathematics and delve into why women had a hard time making more of a contribution.

Whatever context you want to frame a curriculum, I think that emphasizing politics and history with regards to teaching mathematics will not achieve some of the goals that progressive thinkers hope it will achieve. I think the new changes in the curriculum with regards to things such as streaming will help achieve those goals, as I wrote here.

Additionally, I think there are other things that can be done outside the curriculum that could help students that are disadvantaged when it comes to education in math. I am thinking of the work done by organizations like BlackGirlsCode. We could use more organizations like that who can provide specialized programs not just to help kids who are struggling with math, but to uplift kids that excel in math. Organizations that can support the next Maryam Mirzakhani, wherever she is. The kids who are struggling with math need more help than what the schools can provide: the same is true for kids that excel in math.

(Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash)

Three quick thoughts on the new minimalism vs maximalism debate

It looks like minimalism has had it’s time and now it’s time for maximalism to take over. At least that’s the sense I get, reading this:More Is More: The End of Minimalism | The Walrus

My thoughts are this:

Home decor is fashion, as much as clothing is fashion. The fashion for a time has been minimalism. Minimalism not just in having less items in your homes. It’s has also been about the colour of people’s walls. Or the use of mid-century modern furniture with its clean lines. The fashion of minimalism has always been about paring back in all areas of home decor.
Now that form of minimalism is slowly going out of fashion. Home decor may be fashion, and no it doesn’t change as frequently as fashion in clothing, but yes it still changes. And the direction it is going to change towards is maximalism.
I suspect we will see more and more maximalism in the next few years. Especially so as we eventually exit the pandemic. Things will get more colourful. Bolder lines and styles. Bigger pieces. More of everything. (Just like what you see in the photo above.) That will continue to increase until it too goes out of fashion. It’s all a pendulum.

For more on maximalism, here’s some other pieces I wrote. I also wrote more on minimalism too. 🙂

(Image via vinterior.co …I love it)

On the rise and fall and unlikely rise of QR codes

I’ve been a fan of QR codes for a decade. Back then I wrote about how they could be used to tag everything from trees and medic alert bracelets to IOT devices. I thought the sky was the limit for them. I was wrong.

Until this year. As Clive Thompson writes here, the pandemic has been a game changer in causing the resurgence of QR codes. I am glad to see that.

I’d still like to see QR codes everywhere. It would be a way of connecting the virtual world to the real world. Cities could tag streets and neighborhood with QR codes to allow you to get a glimpse of context into where you are standing. If a new building is being built, put a QR code on a sign out front that links to a web site providing greater detail on it. As for historic buildings, why not put a QR code on them that links to their wikipedia page describing the historical significance. Anyway, lots of ways QR codes could enhance our understanding of the world.

Here’s hoping they are here to stay, providing us a way to better navigate our world.

(Photo by Rebecca Hausner on Unsplash )

How the list of five things gets you unstuck and going

Whenever I get stuck and feel unmotivated, I write up a list of five things to do. I recommend you do this too. The list can be trivial tasks that can be done in a minute. Nevermind, just write them down. Then do them. Then take a break and congratulate yourself! Only moments earlier you were not able to do anything and you just did 5 things!

Here’s some things you can put on your list if you can’t think of anything:

Take deep breaths
Stretch
Drink some water
Have a snack
Empty the garbage
Tidy your desk
Email a quick thank you/note of appreciation to someone
Water your plants and see how they are doing
Eat a piece of fruit
Read something inspiration
Write something inspirational for you to read tomorrow
Delete unwanted emails
Unsubscribe to unwanted emails
Check your spam folder for important emails
Declutter your desktop a bit / a lot
Change into better clothes
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Sweep or clean an area of your home
Plan to do something you enjoy

You can easily pull five things out of that list.

Once you get the five done, do five more. Maybe you now have the momentum to tackle something bigger? Great, then do that!

I find this technique good when my energy levels are low, or if my todo list seems daunting. Give it a try: you might find yourself getting more things done.

(Photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash)

How is twitter holding up in 2021?

How is Twitter holding up in 2021? It depends on how you look at it. As a service, it is trying to innovate with new features, but as this piece argues, it is kinda stuck: Twitter Is Stuck With Itself, Too – The New York Times.

As a company, though, it is doing well. For example, it continues to be profitable: Twitter Continues Its Profit Streak, While Still Shedding Users – The New York Times. The shedding users is a concern.

And compared to other services like YouTube, it is doing ok, as this piece shows: YouTube Is Underwhelming – The New York Times. In fact:

Twitter, which is not so hot at money, pulls in roughly double the ad sales on average from each of its users compared with YouTube.

Perhaps it should be acknowledged that the early social media companies like Twitter and YouTube are mature now and their growth and innovation peaks are behind them. Maybe they will continue to be like Facebook: mimicking every new company in the hopes of draining off some of that enthusiasm.

At least Twitter as a company seems to be doing well. For 2021, that may be all they need to be.
(Photo by Edgar MORAN on Unsplash)

It’s Monday. You need a better way to use the pomodoro technique. Read this

There are two things I struggle with when it comes to the pomodoro technique and maybe you struggle with them too. First thing is the length of the pomodoro: 25 minutes is a loooong stretch for me somedays. Sometimes I may not even be able to do 5 minutes at a time. Second thing is that the timer is a distraction: I keep checking the time versus focusing what I am supposed to be doing.

If you also struggle with that, then read this: I Created The Best-Ever Pomodoro Timer, Just For You by Clive Thompson. Clive has the same problems I have and he writes about them there. Better still, he made a better pomodoro timer. Go check it out.

Your week will be more focused and productive because of it.

(Photo by Veri Ivanova on Unsplash)

If you are suffering from the Sunday Scarries (with some extra thoughts from me)

If you have those feelings of dread and anxiety at the thought of work tomorrow, then read this:What are the Sunday scaries and how can you banish them?

Lots of good advice in there on how to get rid of them.

Some other things to consider:

If you can, on the Friday before, try and leave something positive to work on or do for the upcoming Monday. Try and fill Monday (or at least Monday morning) with positive tasks and meetings.
Another thing you can do on that Friday is outline what you plan to accomplish the following week and then stay focussed on that as you ease into Monday. If you can focus on things you want to achieve over the week, it helps dilute the dip into cold water that Monday leaves you feeling.
Acknowledge that other people feel that way and make sure that on Monday you fill their day with positive thoughts and feelings. Doing that will pay you dividends as they will likely reciprocate that positivity. It’s a win-win for all, and your Mondays will take on a more positive vibe, which should help lessen the Sunday scarries.

(Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash )

My cooking interests for Summer, 2021

Whew, it’s been awhile since I wrote about my cooking interests, and in the meantime the list has been building up with all sorts of delicious recipes. As well, I’ve found interesting essays and articles on food generally. Here they are: dig in!

Recipes: I have found so many good recipes I am going to separate them out just to make some sense of them.

Group Recipes: First off, here are some links to recipe lists that are rather good. Ottolenghi has some quick 15 minute lunch recipes that look good. Table for One is full of great solo recipes. Bon Appetit has compiled a list of their readers’ 23 Favorite recipes… some good ones there. A friend pointed out this collection of lovely recipes from Nigel Slater. Well worth a look. I have been craving meatballs lately. If you have too, Chatelaine can help you out there. The site Cup of Jo has a great list of Quick dinners. I like the recipes there a lot. If you feel like a salad, Bon Appetit has some salad ideas for you. Maybe you want soup? Food52 has 16 soup recipes to enjoy. Maybe you are too tired to cook at all. If so, check out 14 No-Cook recipes for hot Days or lazy nights. Finally here is an insane list from Bon Appetit: 76 of Our Best Steak Recipes from Rib Eye to Skirt Steak Fajitas to Skewers. Fire up the grill.

Italianish Recipes: I always love a good carbonara recipe. To go with that, from SaltFatAcidHeat, here is a good focaccia recipe. Remember how I said I liked meatballs? Here’s a meatball recipe from Budget Bytes. I highly recommend you make this right away: My favorite Tuscan fries from Nigella. Or maybe you want a nice antipesto plate of roasted veg.

Ok that was nice, now back to meatballs, with Martha’s Spaghetti and Meatballs and Melissa Clark’s pantry meatballs

Low cost/pantry/cucina povera: Speaking of Melissa Clark’s pantry meals — all of which I am a fan of — here are a few more. For instance this is a nice and easy meal of root vegetables paired with chickpeas and yogurt. Or this sausage and veg soup …sounds great. How about putting this savory loaf packed with cheese and olives to go with it? Sounds just right. Thanks, Melissa.

Meanwhile if you are in the mood to make loafs, I recommend these three meatloafs from Martha that are more French in style than American. There is Spicy Butternut Squash Meatloaf and also this Spanish-Style Meatloaf. Yum!

Still in the mood for more ways to eat cheap and healthy and lazy? Then read this.

Meat recipes: Speaking of eating lazy, I love cutlets for that. Here is Smitten Kitchen with a good chicken cutlet recipe. If you fancy pork, read this:
The Pork Chop Recipe That Finally Got Me on the Pork Chop Train. If you prefer beef instead, here’s a flank steak recipe with Bloody Mary Tomato salad (wow) and here’s a recipe for grilled rib eye with shishito pepper salsa.

Soups, sauces and salad recipes: no particular reason for this grouping, I just like it. Here’s a nice fennel and citrus salad. Here’s something you can have for days: Just-Keeps-Getting-Better Lentil Salad .

Need some sauces? Here’s two: a nice green sauce and a good veloute sauce.

We have a range of soups as well: from cucumber to French Onion with Comte. Here’s a general recipe to make any purred soup in 5 Steps. Last but not least: If You Have Kimchi You’re Steps Away From This Soup. So sez Melissa Clark’s pantry.

Other recipes: Here’s a nice noodle dish to try. Here’s some paleo recipes that looked promising: for fans of paleo. Did we forget drinks? Ok. Here’s a good recipe that is a base for all your summertime cocktails: homemade sour mix. Get to work on your braising. I haven’t tried this but if it works it will be fantastic: making caramelized onions in the oven.

Non-recipe related: Wow. That’s a lot of recipes! Here’s some other things that seemed interesting. For example, here’s three interesting stories on French chefs dealing with the challenge of Michelin ratings: Un! Deux!Trois! Here’s a good story on space food, while here is another one on the economics of casseroles.This guy missed airline meals so much he makes them at home. Ok…sure. For fans of this chef, here’s a good write up on Eric Ripert’s latest cookbook on Vegetables. This was fascinating: Costco Builds Nebraska Supply Chain For Its $5 Rotisserie Chickens. I loved this piece on Caroline Fidanza, the chef who used to run the beloved Saltie’s in Brooklyn. Epic sandwiches! How about this great all purpose pan? Print this of if you bake: Converting cake recipes to different pans Finally, for fans of hot sauce, here is A hot sauce guide with tips for how to use 8 common styles.

Wow. That’s a ton of food links! I hope you found some useful. Happy cooking!

(Image of Caroline Fidanza focaccia sandwich via TASTE.)

Some food for thought on a Saturday

Often I find links that are interesting but I don’t have anything especially interesting to say about them, other than I thought they were worthwhile reading. Here are 30 of them for this month. As the image says, you may get lots of your own ideas from reading the ideas of others:

(Photo by CJ Dayrit on Unsplash)

On wine: what you should expect at each price point

I recently read this and I thought it was a great examination of what you should expect at each price point of wine: How to find the sweet spot in the cost of a bottle of wine | The Hub. It’s really aimed at Canadians, but it can apply elsewhere.

I am still a fan of cheap wine, but I find myself drinking closer to the $20 price point now. In Ontario at least, that seems to be the price at which wines are consistently good. There’s nothing wrong with buying wine at all sorts of price points. You should just know what to expect.

Speaking of cheaper wine, this is worth a read: The Science Behind Your Cheap Wine

(Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash )

What I find interesting in general, Julyish, 2021

Often I find links that are interesting but I don’t know what to do with. Here are some for this month. I should have posted them in July but hey, it’s the thought that counts 🙂

Thank you for reading this far. I don’t know if anyone reads most of my posts, especially these general ones, but I keep at it regardless.

(Top Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash . Bottom Photo by Courtney Hedger on Unsplash)

How to teach your ducking phone to swear

If you are tired of autocorrect trying to teach you manners and swear less, here’s a good hack for you –> Hate the ducking autocorrect on your iOS device? Here’s how to teach it to swear

Not that I am recommending you do this. But if you want to, you can. 🙂

(Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash )

Looking to get fit in the pandemic? Here are 37 great links to help you with that

I’ve been struggling to get back in some form of better shape during the pandemic. During that time, I have been researching diets, fitness routines, meditation routines, health links, wellness articles…you name it. Here are some of the good links I have found that are worthwhile:

(Photo by Alex McCarthy on Unsplash )

It’s Monday. You’re todo list isn’t working for you. Here’s what you should consider

It’s Monday. You are trying to plan your day, your week, and you are struggling. It may just be you, but chances are it is the act of writing out your todo list. To see what I mean, read this excellent piece by my online friend and great writer, Clive Thompson. Everyone struggles with todo lists and the tools used to work with them. I know I do. I have used many such tools over time and have never landed on the perfect one.

So here’s what I recommend:

First, acknowledge todolist tools are blunt instruments at best. Don’t try too hard to do everything with one tool. Do the best you can.
Second, acknowledge that it is easy to overwhelm todo list tools with data. When you do, you end up spending more time working with the tool then getting things done. Try to hold back.
Third, understand the level of granularity to require. Start high level on your todo lists and then drill down only if you have to.
Finally, separate planning and reporting from todo lists. Your plans should drive your todo lists. Focus on more on achieving your plans and your goals and less on your tasks. Then when you are done, report what is necessary.

Todo list tools are good to help you achieve your tasks. But focus less on your tasks and tools and more on what you are trying to achieve.

(Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash )

Trite, simple advice to make you happier at home

butternknife with marmalade

Often times advice is overlooked because it is trite or simple. Such advice is like a butterknife: of limited use but still useful.

We can use all the tools we can to be happier. Even those that cut like butterknives. Here’s 10 of them right here: 10 simple things to make you happier at home

Whatever can help you cut through life’s sadness is worthwhile, I think.

(Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash )

What I found interesting in tech, July 2021

Here’s 59 links (!) of things I have found interesting in tech in the last while.

It ‘s heavily skewed towards Kubernetes because that’s mostly what I have been involved with. Some stuff on Helm, since I was working on a tricky situation with Helm charts. There’s some docker and Open Shift of course, since it’s related. There’s a few general pieces on cloud. And finally at the end there’s links to a bunch of worthwhile repos.

Almost all of these links are self explanatory. The ones that aren’t…well…few if anyone but me reads these posts anyway. 🙂 Just treat it like a collection of potentially good resources.

Raspberry Pi / Pico: I have been interested in doing work with the Raspberry Pi Pico, so here are some links I liked:
Raspberry Pi Pico: Programming with the Affordable Microcontroller and Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico – Control LED brightness with PWM | Raspberry Pi Projects and How to Use an OLED Display With Raspberry Pi Pico | Tom’s Hardware.

I am interested in getting bluetooth working with my Raspberry Pi Pico, so I am reading things like Bluetooth serial communication with Mac, JY-MCU Bluetooth and Arduino | Cy-View and How to: Setup a bluetooth connection between Arduino and a PC/Mac | ./notes and Cheap BlueTooth Buttons and Linux – Terence Eden’s Blog

Not a Pico, but I am also interested in doing work with the ATTTiny 85 chip, so I saved this: How to Program an ATtiny 85 Digispark : 8 Steps – Instructables

Here’s two projects I am interested in. Using a Pico to press a key on the Mac using bluetooth: How to run an AppleScript with a keyboard shortcut on macOS while here is a fun project – Making an Email-Powered E-Paper Picture Frame–

Here’s some cool MIDI projects with a Pico: this one, NEW GUIDE: Modal MIDI Keyboard @adafruit @johnedgarpark #adafruit #midi « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers, this Code the Modal MIDI Controller | Modal MIDI Keyboard | Adafruit Learning System, and this Build smart, custom mechanical keyboards for MIDI – or really tiny Ableton Live control – CDM Create Digital Music

Kubernetes/OpenShift / Containers: I’ve been doing more and more work on K8S and OpenShift and found these useful…

Cloud: some advanced cloud knowledge here:

Software Development: here’s some random dev links:

General: finally here are some interesting links on IT in general:

(Image: via NYT piece on mesh)

July, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Happy midsummer to you. We are halfway through the summer of 2021 which also means it’s time for my latest blog newsletter.

Pandemic: For some time now, as vaccination was on the rise, the underlying story of the pandemic was “this will soon be over”. Masks were coming off. Indoor dining was on coming back. Travel restrictions were easing.

Now the Delta variant has taken over the story and masks are going back on and cases are on the rise. More on that here. I suspect that for at least the time being, we are still going to be struggling with COVID-19 in its many forms/variants.

Some places are trying to just act like it isn’t happening. For example, Tennessee abandoned vaccine outreach to minors and not just for COVID-19. That bout of madness lasted only a bit of time before the wise folks of that state reversed things. But like the pandemic, that madness is going around. For example, Alberta is going to try a similar route, ending COVID rules.

Here’s the problem with this, in my opinion: unlike poverty, politicians can’t ignore COVID. If you try and do so, cases rise, hospitals fill up, more people die. People get upset and promise to vote you out. There’s no getting around it. The only way politicians win in that case is when people ignore them and do the right thing. Even then, their poor judgment is going to hurt them come election time.

As for other provinces, Ontario is trying to open as fast as it can, but it has a good plan and it seems to be sticking to it. However, daily cases were in the 150/day range and have creeped up to over 200. The plan may not hold.

I’m still hoping Canada is on the way to post-pandemic status. Based on our vaccine rates, it’s possible. But who knows. The pandemic humbles us all.

In other pandemic stories, it’s important to acknowledge that all tragedy did not occur directly because of the disease. In Ontario, more young people died from effects of lockdown than of COVID itself. That story is a good reminder that making choices in a pandemic are never straightforward. The choice of lockdown, while benefiting many, harmed others.

The New York Times has had many a good piece on how the pandemic has affected us. Here’s another: The Year of Purchasing and Purging

Finally, many of you have been forced to work at home during the pandemic. Here’s a silver lining: Introducing a simplified process for claiming the home office expenses for Canadians working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Non-pandemic things :

Olympics: It is crazy that the Olympics are going on during the pandemic. There is talk that COVID cases count spike as a result. We will see. As for the Olympics themselves, people are tuning them out. I am not surprised. I know why they weren’t cancelled altogher — a lot of money is at stake — but they should have been.

NFTs: Not much to say here. The fact that Coke is getting into the NFT game tells me that either they are becoming more mainstream or they are petering out.

US: In the US we have a tale of two presidents. The former president continues to be in hot water. First off, it looks like he will be forced to turn over tax records. As well, his actions during the attempted coup of January 6th are getting more scrutiny. Good.

Meanwhile this is what amounts to a Biden controversy: people are upset about his choices of ambassadors. That aside, Biden has a good chance that Congress is going to pass his bipartisan Infrastructure bill. That will be a big win for him.

Another big plus for his presidency is that poverty dropped considerably as a result of poverty aid programs. It’s a reminder that poverty and homelessness are a choice we make.

Finally there was the billionaire space race. I wrote about it here.

Ransomware: Continues to be a problem everywhere including Canada. It looks like Biden has expressed his unhappiness with things to Putin. I am not sure if this is a result of that conversation, but some of the people responsible for ransomware suddenly disappeared.

Lastly thanks for reading this! I appreciate it. Go out and enjoy the summer days while you can.

(Photo by Chris Galbraith on Unsplash)

Two recent pieces on Basquiat

Here on this blog, I like to post anything I can about my favorite artists, and Basquiat is one of my most favorite. Here’s two recent pieces on him:

The last one has this incredible photo in it:

Basquiat with two rich women

First off, the photo is titled: Jean-Michel Basquiat at the opening of Primitivism in 20th Century Art, 1985 (photo by Andy Hanson). I can’t believe that any museum or gallery categorized his work as Primitivism. (Ok, I can.) And then that photo. Basquiat looking cool and sophisticated. The women…well…something else. Anyway….good links. Check them out.

Friday night cocktail: a Lambrusco Spritz

Lambrusco Spritz

While we on this blog love a good glass of cremant anytime, in the summertime we want easy drinking cocktail and mixes like spritzes. Italian liquors are great for these. While you may be happy to chug back of sip Aperol spritzes all weekend, we’d like to recommend something different: the Lambrusco Spritz. There is much to recommend for the Lambrusco Spritz. For one, you can drink Lambrusco as a spritz or straight up. Two, it goes great with snacky food. As the Times shows:

Lambrusco pairs seamlessly with the rich foods of Emilia-Romagna, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano, cured meats and gnocco fritto, meaning that a daytime bottle can easily linger past sunset. “A lot of wines that you might apéro with, you might not want with food,” Ms. Davis said. “The great thing about Lambrusco is that you can drink it all day, and then you can drink it all night.”

Perfect, right? So grab yourself a few bottles and go Day Drinking, Italian Style.

(Image: link to NYTimes article)

Two good pieces for those of us getting older (with some additional thoughts from me).

People running Here’s two worthwhile pieces on growing old:

This, Fighting against ageism and this, Aging is inevitable, so why not do it joyfully? Here’s how.

How we see growing old is a cultural thing. When I first went to pick out a photo, I decided on the first one of the man running. Because I am a product of my culture, as they say. I see being fit and young and productive as valuable. Especially in our culture, being able to produce is highly valued. That’s why ageism occurs. If you show signs of age, people assume you will produce less. So your value decreases to them.

Then I saw the picture below. In other cultures, being able to sit and converse with your friends is valuable. These people are not being productive. They are not trying to look young. They are being social. They are being human.

Old people talking

I think we have problems in our society because for many the chief purpose of humans is to produce, to be productive. As long as that is true, we will have problems with ageism. True, we need times of our life to be productive, but we also need times for growth, times for rest and reflection. To combine all those times effectively is to live a good life. A life where all humans at all times of their lives are valued.

(First Photo by Lisa Wall on Unsplash. Second Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash )

Haiti and the Dominican Republic: a case study as to why results are never monocausal

Dominoes

People like to think outcomes, especially political or social outcomes, are monocausal. They’ll say: Y happened because X occurred.

I think that is rarely true. At best, X could be the main contributor as to why Y occurred. But it is never the only contributor. Often it is not even possible to determine which cause made the most difference. Most outcomes are not monocausal.

A good case study for this can be found in this essay on Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic – by Noah Smith.People will often say the main contributor to Haiti’s poverty was French colonialism or American intervention. Smith makes the case there are many factors that contributed to the significant differences between the two nations and it is not easy or even possible to single out one cause.

The next time someone tries to argue for single causes, look deeper. You’ll like find at least a half different other factors that contributed. People who can highlight multiple causes for an event understand the event better.

(Photo by Tamara Gak on Unsplash )

On getting back into running with Darebee

Here on this blog I am a big booster of Darebee. While they have a wide variety of workouts, the ones I am interested in recently are having to do with running. If you are trying to get into or back into running, you might find these useful:

The long run – I am interested in this since I want to get some distance in
8 weeks to 5K Challenge – good for anyone wanting to run a 5K
Walk & Run Challenge – a good challenge
From Walking to Running – more on getting from walking to running
Running Form– good form is very important (see image above)
How to Reach Your Goals – a good thing in general

On the big anniversary of the Lunar Rover

Lunar rover

While there has been a lot of talk lately about space travel due to the billionaire space race, I want to highlight something people rarely mention but should. It’s that it is the anniversary of Apollo’s First Lunar Rover, Driven 50 Years Ago. The Atlantic has a great story on it, including amazing photos.

It’s crazy to think that not only did we land on the moon, but we brought a car with us to drive on the moon! That’s amazing, to me.

In the film Ad Astra with Brad Pitt, there’s a great chase scene with Lunar Rovers. Nothing quite so exciting like that happened during the Apollo missions, but the fact that we brought a car to the moon is exciting as it is. Plus it is still parked up there! I hope the parking rates aren’t too expensive 🙂

It’s Monday. Here’s some advice on how to work hard EFFECTIVELY. (Think Marathon training)

Marathon event

It’s Monday. You have a work week ahead of you. Here’s a good essay by Paul Graham on: How to Work Hard – Paul Graham

I often disagree with Graham on Twitter and you may too. However don’t be put off by that: his essays tend to be well thought out and worthy of a read and your consideration.

As for me, where I learned how to work hard effectively is during marathon training. Training for a marathon is a form of hard work. I would argue it is the best form of hard work. Here’s why.

For marathon training, you need:

a clear goal. For many people, it is to finish the marathon. Or to finish it under a certain time. There are subgoals too: not get injured during the race, or to race easy, or to have a negative split. To work hard effectively, you need goals and subgoals
a well thought out plan. People who train effectively for a marathon have a well thought out plan to achieve their goal. These plans can be anywhere from 12-20 weeks and describe what you are doing each day. The plan is often broken up into phase: a phase where you build up your mileage, a phase where you work to get faster, and a tapering phase. A good training plan gets you much closer to achieving your goal.
A mix of hard and easy training. No one goes hard every day in marathon training. You will fail if you do. Overall the training is hard, but there are many days where it is easy. Days your body gets to recover. Some days you may not train at all. The most effective way to work hard over a long period of time is to mix in easy periods.
A good amount of fun and variety. Yes, good marathon training has fun and variety mixed in. It’s not the same every day. It’s not all a grind. Good marathon runners will run fartleks for fun or run with friends to help keep their spirits up. They might mix in some cross training. They rarely run the same distance every day.
Passion and vision. More than anything, you need these. You need to have a strong desire to get through the training. A desire that gets you out of bed for those long runs when you really don’t want to. You need to have a vision of where you will end up when you complete the training. Successful marathoners see themselves reaching that goal most days of their training. It’s the thing that gets them excited to run the same routes over and over again. It’s the thing that gets them pumped when they have to charge up hills. Preparing for a marathon can’t feel like a job if you are going to do it well.

Now ask yourself about hard work that you have to do? Do you have those things. That hard project you have in front of you: are you passionate about it? Do you have a vision of what completing it looks like? Do you have a clear goal and a well thought out plan? Do you have a practice of taking breaks, or is it full tilt all the time? Is it merely a grind, or do you have fun and variety in it? If you have all the features of marathon training in your plan, chances are you will be able to work hard, very hard, and be successful.

Do work hard poorly is to waste yourself, to waste your life. Don’t do that. Work hard effectively and make the most of your life. Good luck!

(Photo by Capstone Events on Unsplash )

On Jacques Pepin

I am a big fan of Jacques Pepin: I watch his Instagram videos from start to finish. If you want to see why they are great, you can go here and see YouTube version of them all.

I especially liked this one:

Pepin also has a “new” cookbook out. You can find out more about it at the Times:

One thing I love about Pepin is his approach to cooking is truly about making the most of it. Every Tuesday he prepares budget versions of some dishes. He uses the microwave…he even uses Spam. Hey, he’s Jacques Pepin, he can do what he wants. And I think his use of low cost foods and his practice of not throwing away food or wasting it is admirable

P.S. Not Pepin, but something similar: Old Italian cooking. Love it.

Apple and the limits of minimalism as a design quality

I like minimalism as a quality in phones. But when I look at the phone above, I see two bulges. One is the camera, and two is this battery pack. It’s as if companies want to have the best of both worlds: minimal design and maximum capacity. But rather than designing for it, we get….well, what you see above.

I understand the economics of it. I just don’t see why Apple doesn’t spend more time to design a battery pack and a camera that incorporates better into the phone.

For more on the battery pack, go here: Apple’s ‘Camel Hump’ battery pack is back… this time in a wireless MagSafe avatar | Yanko Design

(Image: link to image in the article)

Friday Night Cocktail: the shrub

What can be a more perfect drink in the hot days and nights of summer than a shrub? A gin and tonic? Yes, that is very good. And like a G&T, you can take that frosty cold glass and put it against your skin and cool yourself off. But a shrub also takes advantage of all that great fresh fruit showing up at your grocer. What can be better than that?

So grab any berry that catches your fancy and go here and make tonight’s cocktail and cool off: Any-Berry Shrub Recipe | Bon Appétit

On long lived institutions and companies

Most companies come and go, as do organizations. Even former great ones can collapse or merge with others.

Most do, but not all. Here’s two really good studies of companies and organizations that have lasted for a very long time:

The Internet has always had its bad parts. You just didn’t know about it

Every so often someone will highlight Something Bad on the Internet and remark that once the Internet was a Good Place but now because of Something Bad, it no longer is.

I am sure they believe that, but they are wrong. The Internet has been a place for Something Bad for as long as it has been around. Case it point, Usenet groups. Before the Web, Usenet was a popular way to read about sports and the news and IT and pretty much anything else. Most of it was pretty mainstream, but some of it, especially the “alt” Usenet groups, was not.

To give you a taste of what I mean, read this: alt.binaries.images.underwater.non-violent.moderated: a deep dive – Waxy.org

There has always been Something Bad on the Internet since forever. (To see what I mean, read about ASCII porn.) There was never a golden era.

(Photo by Leon Seibert on Unsplash )

5 or 10 thoughts on the billionaire space race

Image of Jeff Bezos blasting into space

Jeff Bezos blasted into space today with three other people. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has an opinion about it. Even Variety magazine did. (That’s worth a read BTW). So fwiw, here’s 1o things I thought about it:

It’s good to see more interest in space in general. NASA and other space agencies do plenty in terms of space exploration, but often it is overlooked by people. Suddenly — for better or worse — people are talking about space again.
It’s good to see money being spent on space travel. NASA has suffered for years with cutbacks. Decades. Here’s to more money being effectively used in space.
These flights of Branson and Bezos are small steps in terms of space travel. They are miles behind SpaceX even, never mind NASA or other space agencies. As we like to say in business: it’s a good start (implying there is a long way to go).
Small steps can lead to big steps if they continue to pursue this and pour money into it. That’s a big if. Like any space exploration, it is hard to continue to make people interested in it after it starts to seem repetitive. They might find it much harder to get space tourists to pay a small fortune their 10th or 15th flight. Never mind after the first person dies (and someone will).
Even if everything goes well, it could still fail in the longer run. The Concorde failed and it was much simpler technology than this stuff. Not everything that is the best and fastest gets to succeed.
I can’t see the ROI on space travel. Musk and SpaceX can get away with it because they have a client with the money to spend on it (i.e. NASA). Not sure if Bezos can wrestle some of that business away. Then again, perhaps there’s a global market for these services.
I think there would have been a much more positive reaction if it wasn’t Bezos or Branson leading these endeavours. Give Musk credit: he lets the real astronauts do the work. Plus none of these men are inspiring to most people. They aren’t John Glenn or Neil Armstrong: they are billionaires. Bezos was at least smart enough to Wally Funk with him: that was a good distraction from the other members on his team.
It will remain to be seen if they can catch up to Musk, or if they are even interested. Musk can act the fool, but he seems driven to push private space exploration to the limits. I can see Branson dropping out soon once some other thing comes along. Bezos is a bit of a mystery to me.
People are criticizing them for spending money on space rather than here on earth, but Bill Gates spends his fortune on such things and he is criticized mightly for it. It’s a no win in terms of spending your money. They all should pay more taxes. (Although a lot of tax money in the US goes into the military budget. That’s a different but related issue.)
Here’s to more inspiring people going to space soon, and to more inspiring space travel. Let’s hope this leads to that.

(Image: link from the Variety article)

On Pepper and Watson

If you have even a passing knowledge of IT, you likely have heard of Pepper and Watson. Pepper was a robot and Watson was an AI system that won at Jeopardy. Last week the Verge and the New York Times had articles on them both:

I don’t have any specific insights or conclusions into either technology, other than trite summations like “cutting edge technology is hard” and “don’t believe the hype”. AI and robotics are especially hard, so the risks are high and the chances of failure are high. That comes across in these two pieces.

Companies from Tesla to Boston Dynamics and more are making grand claims about their AI and their robotics. I suspect much of it will suffer the same fate as Pepper and Watson. Like all failure, none of it is final or fatal. People learn from their mistakes and move on to make better things. AI and robotics will continue to advance…just not at the pace many would like it too.

In the meantime, go read those articles. Especially if you are finding yourself falling for the hype.

(Image: link of image on The Verge)

The lie within resilience

There is a lie within resilience. Not just the letters themselves: there is a falsehood included in the concept.

The lie is that if you are resilient, you snap back. You recover. You regain what you lost. This is what I have thought. I believed that.

After every one of the many setbacks I have suffered over the last decade I have told myself that I am resilient. Even my doctor told me that I was the most resilient people she had ever met. Every time I thought that, I thought: I will come back. I will recover. I will be who I was.

I don’t believe that any more. I don’t think resilient people recover. You may not break, but you can no longer come back to what you were. You turn into something else. Something misshapen. You become like a piece of paper than is crumpled up and then flattened out: you are never the same as you were before the crumpling. Never as good.

I am sure some people can comeback from setbacks. But if you get enough of them, even when the thing that crumpled your life goes away, you can never go back to the way you once were. You’re ruined.

It’s Monday. You need to start writing better emails. This can help

It’s Monday. Most of you need to write better emails. Want to know how to do that? Read this: How to Write Less Terrible Emails If Writing Doesn’t Come Easy to You. You will learn several good things from that article, including how to structure your email. Essentially your emails should be in this form:

1. Greeting
2. Ask or action requested
3. Concise description of context and impact
4. Closing

Now some of you may say: I don’t need email, I have Slack. Trust me: you still need email and you need to know how to construct good emails. Read that and you will.

If you don’t have to send email, then don’t. That’s the best option. But if you do, send a good one.

What do Willy Wonka and Terminator 2 have in common?

Not much, other than Willy Wonka turns 50 this year and Terminator 2 turns 30. For fans of either movie, those links have good things for you to read up on.

(Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash )

Bring back A/V equipment that looks like furniture! :)

Ok, that’s not going to happen. I suspect most audio-visual equipment is going to look more like computers and less like furniture for the foreseeable future. Most, but not all. Take the bluetooth speaker above. Yep, that’s a bluetooth speaker! The tech is modern, but the enclosure is a throwback to midcentury modern. I love it.

For more on it, see: Hifi Case Aura 2 Speaker | Uncrate

On what you can learn from the obituaries of the not quite famous

What can we learn from the obituaries of the not quite famous? I thought of that when I was reading the sad fate of Hash Halper, here: Hash Halper, Street Artist Who Adorned New York With Hearts, Dies at 41 – The New York Times.

Obituaries in big newspapers tend to be for the rich and famous and powerful and great. Mainly. But sometimes you read about someone who was none of those things, who was struggling, yet who affected people in a positive way. Someone like Hash Halper.

What we learn, perhaps, is that it doesn’t matter if you were rich and powerful. Bernie Madoff was rich and powerful. It didn’t make his life better or more worthwhile. Hash Halper did more good with his chalk hearts than Madoff did with all he had. In the end, it all washes away, save for the things you did to affect the lives of others.

We can learn many things from the obituaries of the not quite famous. Maybe we can learn/be reminded of what it is we want to do in the world, while we are here. That’s a very fine thing to learn indeed.

Rest in peace, Hash Halper.

(Image Kholood Eid for The New York Times, link)

In the future, will you own anything?

In 2030, you may not own any gadgets, says this Gizmodo piece: In the Future, You Won’t Own Any Gadgets.

It makes some strong points. It’s true, younger people aren’t as keen to own things. (Heck, this is also true of older people who get fed up with the accumulation of things). And companies are keen to lease things. Add that up and you will see less and less owning.

From an IT perspective, I’ve been through this before. For a long time IBM had a very strong business in leasing technology. That gradually went away and more and more companies bought their technology. Then server farms came followed by the cloud, and now we are effectively seeing companies lease more IT again. Will it switch back again?

I think so. Eventually the cons outweigh the pros, be it for leasing or owning. People will move to leasing because it saves them money in the short term. Then eventually it gets more costly and the restrictions on the leases push them to own things again. Until the costs of owning add up and they switch back to leasing.

So yes, people will be moving to leasing for some time. Then they will switch back to owning more stuff. Of this I am confident.

(Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash)

A brilliant use of tattoos

Over at My Modern Met they have a story on how artist Ngoc Like uses tattoos to cover the scars of her patrons: Scar Cover-Up Tattoos Help Women Regain Confidence in Their Bodies.

Some people may not want to cover their scars: they may not like tattoos or they may be indifferent or even proud of their scars. And that’s fine. But for people badly affected by scaring, this is a wonderful way to recover from that, I think.

See the article for many more photos such as the one above.